In wildness is your name.

The names of men are meaningless. I will not allow mere names to make distinctions for me. A familiar name cannot make a man less strange to me.

Some travelers tell us that an Indian had no name given him at first, but earned it, and among some tribes he acquired a new name with every new exploit.

We have a wild savage in us. So every man has an original wild name. An Indian retains in secret his own wild title earned in the woods. Our true names are nicknames.

A familiar name does not adhere to a man when in anger or aroused by any passion or inspiration. At such a time a man’s kin will confer his own wild title.

H.D. Thoreau, Walking (1861)

Mount Pritchard, Age 60

Catching my breath after climbing the ridge,
silver grey light from the pond below,
the sky suddenly close, then dark -- 
a vulture glides by
to see if I’m alive.



Zphx

collecting moments untouched

collecting moments
untouched by hope or regret,
expanding the present with
relaxed attention to the unexpected
splash, a blue heron reflected in the lake,
a doe alert on the lawn,
a fox runs across the road,
the call of a loon in the middle of the night.
the light on the water,
the sound of the waves.
a sudden wind clears the air.

Zphx

Lighting up the Mist.

February 27.

We have heard of a Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. Methinks there is equal need of a Society for the Diffusion of Useful Ignorance. For what is most of our boasted so-called knowledge but a conceit that we know something, which robs us of the advantage of our actual ignorance?

Which is the best man to deal with,—he who knows nothing about a subject, and, what is extremely rare, knows that he knows nothing, or he who really knows something about it, but thinks that he knows all?

A man's ignorance sometimes is not only useful, but beautiful,—while his knowledge, so called, is oftentimes worse than useless, besides being ugly. What we call knowledge is often our positive ignorance; ignorance our negative knowledge.

The highest that we can attain to is not Knowledge, but Sympathy with Intelligence.

I do not know that this higher knowledge amounts to anything more definite than a novel and grand surprise on a sudden revelation of the insufficiency of all that we called Knowledge before,—a discovery that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our philosophy.

It is the lighting up of the mist by the sun. Man cannot know in any higher sense than this.

H.D. Thoreau, Walking (1861) 

See February 27, 1851("I do not know that knowledge amounts to anything more definite than a novel and grand surprise, or a sudden revelation of the insufficiency of all that we had called knowledge before; an indefinite sense of the grandeur and glory of the universe. It is the lighting up of the mist by the sun. But man cannot be said to know in any higher sense,  than he can look serenely and with impunity in the face of the sun.")

Thoreau on American Destiny

I believe that climate does react on man. An English traveler tells us that in America Nature has outlined her works on a larger scale, and has painted with brighter colors than the Old World:

"The heavens of America appear infinitely higher, the sky is bluer, the air is fresher, the cold is intenser, the moon looks larger, the stars are brighter, the thunder is louder, the lightning is vivider, the wind is stronger, the rain is heavier, the mountains are higher, the rivers longer, the forests bigger, the plains broader."

As there is something in the mountain-air that feeds the spirit and inspires, I believe man will grow to greater perfection intellectually as well as physically under these influences.

I trust that Americans shall be more imaginative:

• our thoughts will be clearer, fresher, and more ethereal, as our sky;

• our understanding more comprehensive and broader, like our plains;

• our intellect generally on a grander scale, like our thunder and lightning, rivers, mountains and forests.

Else to what end does the world go on, and why was America discovered?

H.D Thoreau, Walking (1861)
(see Journal, February 2, 1852)

Wildness

I wish to speak a word for Nature, for absolute freedom and wildness—to regard man as an inhabitant of Nature, rather than a member of society.

I wish to make an extreme statement, if so I may make an emphatic one, for what I have been preparing to say is, that in Wildness is the preservation of the World.

Life consists with wildness. The most alive is the wildest.

To preserve wild animals implies generally the creation of a forest for them to dwell in. So it is with man. A town is saved by the woods and swamps that surround it.

I believe in the forest, and in the meadow, and in the night in which the corn grows.

Give me for my friends and neighbors wild men, not tame ones. Give me the awful ferity with which good men and lovers meet.

All good things are wild and free.

H.D Thoreau, Walking (1861)

"We lived on excitement"

Camp near Gettysburg - July

My ever dear Lettie:

This is probably the most welcome message that you ever received from me. I have time to write but few words. This is the first opportunity I have had. I have been engaged nearly all the time for the past few days in one of the worst battles this continent ever knew.

We are all well except Floyd, who went to the hospital this morn. None of us were hurt in battle but Floyd is all tired out, but think he will be all right when he gets rested. 2 out of my company were killed and 7 wounded. A spent-ball struck me, knocking me down but I got right up again madder than ever. E.T. Davis of Felchville was killed. O such scenes such scenes.

I cannot write now but will if ever I get time. I am sitting on the battlefield now and there is a man here who says he will try and get this to some P.O. He is waiting, I must close.

We have suffered for want of food on the long march and the fight. I haven't had a mite of clothing on me night or day except my Blouse & Pants for 3 days and nights and slept right in the mud without a tent or a sign of anything. We lived on excitement for two days certain for I didn't eat more than two or three hard tacks all the time.

We won a great victory and are now following the enemy. I counted 115 dead Rebels today on a piece of ground 4 rods square. The troops have all left, except the W. Brigade. We are burying the Rebs now and shall leave as soon as we get done. Our Reg't won the admiration of all for its gallantry, having captured 3 stand of colors and lots of prisoners.

I will write again as soon as I possibly get time. From your loving husband, Elmer

Captain Elmer Duane Keyes, Company H, 16th Vermont Regiment, Letter from Gettysburg Battlefield, July 4, 1863

Endless Forms Most Beautiful

November 24.

When on board H.M.S. “Beagle,” as naturalist, I was much struck with certain facts. All living forms of life are lineal descendants of those which lived long before the Cambrian epoch.

Imagine a tangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth. These elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and dependent upon each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us.

While this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been and are being evolved according to the laws of growth, reproduction, inheritance, variation and natural selection.

Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species (published November 24,1859)

It is interesting to contemplate a tangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and dependent upon each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us. These laws, taken in the largest sense, being Growth with Reproduction; Inheritance which is almost implied by reproduction; Variability from the indirect and direct action of the conditions of life, and from use and disuse: a Ratio of Increase so high as to lead to a Struggle for Life, and as a consequence to Natural Selection, entailing Divergence of Character and the Extinction of less-improved forms. Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved.